Beyond Outrage: Approaching Arts Controversy in Postcommunist Poland
Beyond Outrage: Approaching Arts Controversy in Postcommunist Poland

Summary/Abstract: In recent decades, public disagreements over artistic expression have emerged as a key feature of contemporary democratic culture. This has also been the case in the formerly communist countries of East and Central Europe such as Poland where persistent arts controversy has become a central component of the postcommunist era. This article explores the characteristics of postcommunist Poland’s arts conflicts, how they relate to other models of contemporary arts controversy, and what might be deemed their specific “postcommunist” qualities. It also looks into the evolution of how arts controversy has been understood and interpreted in Poland after 1989—from the 1990s’ scandalous outrage with mostly visual arts, through the decisive cultural and political turning points of the following decade, up to the debates of recent years about controversial theatre productions like Golgota Picnic (2014), the public sphere and the outcomes of postcommunist transformation.

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